Snom M900 multicell base station

Product Review

There are many businesses that require wireless telephony on their premises. Hospitals, hotels, warehouses, universities, and a multitude of manufacturing environments require employees to maintain a high level of mobility within an enterprise’s facilities while simultaneously maintaining their reachability via the internal phone system.

For such environments, a DECT-based system is arguably the simplest turn-key solution. Snom has made such a solution even simpler and highly scalable with its M900 DECT base station.

Ease of deployment

The M900 DECT base station is very easy to deploy. It connects directly to the enterprise LAN, draws power using power over ethernet standards, and can be either wall- or ceiling-mounted. It’s small in size, with a height and width of 7 inches and a thickness of 2 inches, and is sleekly designed, making it inconspicuous, no matter where it is installed.

The M900 integrates the mature, robust, and secure characteristics of the DECT 6.0 cordless phone system with the flexibility and feature-rich characteristics of VoIP systems. Through its LAN connectivity, the base station can be configured remotely via its comprehensive web interface.

The M900 can be deployed as a standalone base station that can serve up to 30 connected handsets within a radius of up to 50 meters in an indoor environment. In this single base-station setup, the M900 can deliver up to five simultaneous calls using wideband codecs or up to ten simultaneous calls using narrow band codecs. Nevertheless, the advantages of the M900 become even more apparent within a multicell deployment.

Multicell deployment

What is unique to Snom’s solution for an enterprise-wide cordless telephony system is the fact that there is no need for a centralized DECT controller. The initial base station is deployed as the primary base station. All subsequently installed base stations are configured as secondary base stations. These register to the primary and obtain their configuration automatically from there.

The key area in which the M900 outperforms its predecessor, the M700, is in the scalability of a multicell deployment. Whereas the M700 supports up to 254 base stations and up to 1000 handsets, the M900 allows for a deployment of up to 1000 base stations that can serve up to 4000 handsets. This can deliver service to an indoor area of almost eight square kilometers, or almost 2000 acres! To get a better idea of what this means practically, that’s enough area coverage to serve the Empire State Building thirty times over! This coverage can be further supplemented as needed using up to 100 DECT repeaters, such as the Snom M5, which is suitable for both the M700 and the M900.

The M900 also comes as an outdoor model, which is ruggedized to withstand the elements.

VoIP backbone is the key

These base stations are designed to register to any SIP-based telephony service, either on premises or on the cloud. The SIP protocol is an IP-based protocol and runs over virtually all enterprise data networks, as well as the internet. The fact that an IP network is used as the backbone of this voice network means that these base stations can be distributed throughout the network infrastructure of any enterprise, including a multisite enterprise. This means that multiple base stations can be situated in various facilities of a company that may be spread out across the country or even around the world, and all base stations, as long as they have IP connectivity, can still be part of the same integrated cordless DECT telephony system.

Use of cutting-edge network protocols

Both DECT and VoIP contain mature telecom standards that deliver security, flexibility, and high quality. The M900 supports the most popular voice codecs, including narrowband (G.711, G726, G.729) and wideband (G.722, Opus) codecs. HTTPS, LLDP, 802.1Q, and TLS 1.2 are just some of the network protocols that are also supported by the device. Wireless authentication and encryption are also part of the employed DECT 6.0 standard that is used by the M900.

Supported handsets

The M900 base station supports virtually all of Snom’s most popular DECT cordless telephones. These include:

• M25 – Office cordless phone with an excellent price-performance ratio. It features a charging base delivering 75 hours of standby and 7 hours of talk time
• M65 – Professional handset delivering 250 hours of standby time and a wideband speakerphone
• M70 – Ruggedized HAC (hearing aid compatible) cordless phone with integrated Bluetooth, vibration, alarm key, and HD audio support
• M80 – Compact ruggedized cordless phone ideal for outside use in any weather, with all the benefits of the M70 plus IP65 protection and a multi-color display
• M85 – Industrial ruggedized cordless phone for the most demanding workplace environments. Ideal for both indoor and outdoor use, with shockproof, splashproof, and dustproof characteristics
• M90 – Antibacterial handset that has a special antibacterial housing that has been tested according to JIS-Z280. This seamless housing also enables the phone to be cleaned with liquid disinfectants containing alcohol (ethanol). It delivers Bluetooth, HD audio, vibration, alarm key, HAC compliance, and multi-colored LED display

Key features of the base station:

Some of the key features of the M900 include:

• DECT 6.0
• Frequency bands of 1880 - 1900 MHz (EU) and 1920 - 1930 MHz (U.S.)
• Output power: EU <250 mW, U.S. <140 mW
• Seamless handover and roaming from base station to base station
• Handover achieved using DECT/LAN synchronization IEEE1588
• Indoor range of 50 meters
• Outdoor range of 300 meters
• Up to 4,000 registered handsets in the same network in multicell setup
• Up to 1,000 registered base stations in a multicell setup
• Up to 100 repeaters in a multicell setup
• Up to 10 narrowband or 5 wideband calls per base station in single-cell setup
• Up to 8 narrowband or 4 wideband calls per base station in multicell setup
• Common phonebook with up to 3,000 entries
• Compatible with M700 on the same multicell network running the same software version
• Supported audio codecs include G.722, G.711 A-law and μ-law, G.726, G.729, BV32, Opus
• Network features include:
  • Remote software updates via HTTP / HTTPS / TFTP
  • Automatic loading of settings via HTTP / HTTPS / TFTP
  • Completely configurable through web interface
  • Static IP, DHCP support
  • NTP (Network Time Protocol)
  • Secure provisioning and authentication with Mutual TLS through individual certificate issued by Snom CA
  • Compatible handset features RSSI tool, no additional measurement equipment needed
  • Power: Power over Ethernet (PoE) IEEE802.3af or the use of a power injector is also an option

Conclusion

The M900 is a step up from the capabilities of the M700 that have been showcased in a previous article. For large enterprises that are expected to grow, merge, or expand, this extremely scalable cordless telephony solution is ideal: simple to deploy, easy to administer, and a snap to scale up.

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